Stop Press

by Michael Innes

  Appleby made exaggeratedly round eyes. ‘If your mind doesn’t run on sinister lines!’

  ‘It sounds absurd, no doubt. But I have Chown in my head as a sinister influence – perhaps because Belinda appears to regard him that way. Have you read The Moonstone?’

  Perplexity and merriment might have been discerned as struggling on Appleby’s features. ‘The Moonstone? I remember some Indians who practice hypnotism. But I don’t see – ’

  ‘Or alternatively’, said Winter, ‘drugs. The chief point of the story is that under the influence of a drug a man may do things utterly alien to his own nature and remember nothing about it afterwards. Well, Archie Eliot was drugged, and it has occurred to me that Eliot himself may have been drugged too – and done lord knows what. I’ve discovered that he mayn’t have been in that linen cupboard with Miss Cavey for more than a minute at each end; she admits she talked herself oblivious of his presence.’

  ‘And the hypnotism?’

  ‘That’ – Winter looked slightly uncomfortable – ‘is just an alternative I thought of afterwards when I remembered about Chown and his technique. Subjects of a certain type can be made to do the most extraordinary things under hypnotic influence.’

  Appleby contemplated his apprentice with the frankest of grins. ‘If we don’t keep on making progress!’ He stared out over the landscape; turned back with a sudden and startling seriousness. ‘Yes,’ he said soberly; ‘we make progress.’

  Winter looked at him sharply. ‘While I’ve been messing round with bookish notions you have hunted down the vital finger-print?’

  Appleby shook his head absently. ‘No finger-prints,’ he said. ‘You’re as old-fashioned as the man who monkeyed with the Renoir. And often no hunting down. Have you ever talked to crack newspapermen? They’ll tell you that the big things come not through hunting but simply through carrying round a certain state of mind… You’re really interested?’

  ‘Intensely.’

  Appleby gave him an almost doubtful glance. ‘This curious business is my life,’ he said. ‘And I’m learning that it isn’t the nature of truth really to hide itself. It’s there – like something significant but very familiar in a room waiting for one’s awareness. Think you, ’mid all this mighty sum–’

  ‘Dear man, we have enough of that at Rust.’

  Appleby looked at Winter with serious far-away eyes and reiterated:

  ‘Think you, ’mid all this mighty sum

  Of things for ever speaking,

  That nothing of itself will come,

  But we must still be seeking?’

  He smiled again, cheerfully friendly. ‘Quotation’, he said, ‘sometimes does pin it down.’

  Obscure irritation rose in Winter. ‘Wise policemanly passiveness,’ he said. ‘Who would have thought of that one?’

  Again Appleby smiled, unsettled. ‘It’s true, though, and it’s what makes the game interesting. You never know where you are. The truth – substantial truth and no mirage – may suddenly rear its exquisite pinnacles from the very deserts of boredom… As I say, we make progress.’

  ‘I’m glad. I’ve been here twenty-four hours and I see nothing but a mess.’ Winter spoke with sudden unhappy sincerity. ‘What exactly is the progress we make?’

  ‘Not the brute temporal sort.’ Appleby skipped deftly to evasion. ‘Somebody is conducting an experiment with time. The Rust clocks are not behaving well. Some have insisted on striking twelve at ten and eleven. The latest of the incidental sound-effects. Others have hurried on to twelve and stopped there. Murder at Midnight, you know.’

  ‘Rather what Faust wanted.’ Winter straightened up, suddenly excited. ‘But, man! – doesn’t that mean considerable technical skill?’

  ‘Something like knowing which cog to eliminate, I should suppose – knowledge which might be arrived at by experiment. Rupert has dangled a screwdriver before my nose in a workroom – Archie’s workroom really, as it turns out. Eliot himself is spasmodically mechanically-minded. Overall has confided to Mrs Moule that he has the loveliest electric railway in an attic at home. When you went excavating in Arabia you mugged up and took charge of the chronometers.’

  Winter felt within himself a sudden nervous jerk – what storytellers have in mind, no doubt, when they speak of a man jumping. ‘And you advertise yourself’, he said bitterly, ‘as sitting on his old grey stone, dreaming your time away.’

  ‘Routine, you know. Telegraph wires, telephone wires – and knowing the likely people to tap.’ Appleby’s smile, it struck Winter, was controlled in rather a businesslike way. It faded now. ‘Murder at Midnight,’ he repeated. ‘Like the clocks, this thing must stop. Whenever you have another thought like that about The Moonstone, bring it along. Every little helps.’

  Winter opened his mouth to reply, paused, gaped down the terrace. ‘Approaching you’, he said, ‘are our host; his bête noire Mrs Birdwire; my bête noire Dr Bussenschutt; and a presence that can be none other than Jasper Shoon himself, amator sacrosanctae antiquitatis. Incidentally, I quite forgot to use your damned telegraph wires to reply to a civil invitation from him. It is much, much too much. Officer, farewell.’ He vanished with discreet haste through a window.

  Appleby turned round. ‘Come you in peace’, he murmured, ‘or come you in war?’ He strode confidently towards the approaching party.

  Confidences and ignorance are often children of one birth. As he progressed down the terrace he became aware of expressions of wonder and consternation on the faces of Mr Eliot’s new guests. These grew; Appleby, considerably taken aback, was conjecturing what sudden and mortifying change could have taken place in his own appearance when he heard an incredible but unmistakable noise behind him. He turned round. Absurdly on Mr Eliot’s unpretending but decorous terrace, catastrophically towards the august party before him, he was leading a drove of sizable black pigs.

  Even as footmen are unready to grapple with ladies who suddenly reveal themselves as the raw material of art, so policemen – however impeccably trained – may be at momentary loss when incontinently transmogrified into swineherds on the terraces of country houses. Appleby stopped in his tracks. Nor did the wisest passiveness reveal to him that he was contemplating the prologue to grotesque tragedy.

  The party came up. Mr Eliot was the first to speak – a Mr Eliot who would have been familiar to Winter but whose acquaintance Appleby had not yet made. ‘This’, he said, ‘is a curious but far from unfortunate circumstance. You can meet at once some of the most important inhabitants of Rust. My dear Mr Shoon’ – he looked at the great man with diffident gaiety – ‘are you by any chance interested in middle blacks? Our herd is not without points of interest.’

  Mr Shoon, who was old and silver-grey and in bearing distinguished to a point quite beyond probability, stood his ground as if to be surrounded by pigs was the first thing he had expected at Rust Hall. ‘I cherish them,’ he said without extravagance, ‘as I cherish every diminishing remnant of better times. The middle black, like the native squirrel which the imported varieties are chasing so remorselessly from our woods, has surely some title to our antiquarian regard.’ With great elegance Mr Shoon applied an ivory walking stick to the task of scratching the nearest middle-black back. ‘Dr Bussenschutt, do you not agree with me?’

  Dr Bussenschutt was clearly uncertain as to what degree of seriousness or levity the unexpected encounter called for. ‘I am afraid’, he said, ‘that all ungulate non-ruminant mammals are one to me.’ He edged nervously from a routing snout and appeared to consider that he had dipped too far towards facetiousness. ‘But I congratulate you, my master’ – he had no doubts as to Appleby’s role – ‘on your attractive charges. To an unskilled eye at least they seem to be in – ah – capital fleece.’ He made a wary attempt to emulate the caressing tactic of Mr Shoon. Appleby, remembering a fragment of Horace which bore on pigs, repeated it in the sort of accent that philologists classify as Received Standard. Dr Bussenschutt, further at a loss, frowned severely, cle
ared his throat and fired something back in Greek. The pigs, seemingly intrigued by their novel environment, supplied an Aristophanic chorus. The situation was eminently absurd.

  And it was Mrs Birdwire’s turn. Mrs Birdwire, a large red woman, gave the nearest pig a vigorous kick – the action might be called swinish, Appleby philosophically reflected – and raised an equally vigorous voice. The point about Mrs Birdwire was immediately clear: she was of those who believe it feasible to be unfriendly and familiar, rude and jolly – all these in one. ‘Dirty brutes,’ cried Mrs Birdwire impossibly; ‘dirty brutes in their domestic degradation!’ She turned on Mr Eliot as if he were responsible for debauching the pristine purity of the whole porcine species. ‘If only’, she said with loud cheerful scorn, ‘you could see the magnificent wild pigs of the Tango-Tango!’

  ‘Dear lady,’ said Bussenschutt instantly, ‘do you remember your glorious boar hunt there on Good Friday?’

  Appleby, dismissing the pigs as inessential properties, looked curiously at Gerald Winter’s colleague-in-chief. The pigs were loudly absurd – but it is the little things that are really odd. And his eye went from Bussenschutt to Shoon. The eminent antiquarian – or curioso as Patricia said he preferred to be called – had clearly been pained at the cruelty of Mrs Birdwire’s act; he was going so far as to lean forward and scratch the ear of the offended pig with a lavender-coloured glove. ‘Lovely creatures!’ he said. He glanced at the terrace and then at Mr Eliot with a charming mischief that seemed to emphasize the appallingness of Mrs Birdwire. ‘Even’, he added with quaint learning, ‘if shade ectopic in their present situation.’ Mr Shoon glanced benignantly round – humane, cultivated, important, and quite definitely in command.

  There was a pause during which it was only too evident that Mrs Birdwire was preparing some major act of self-expression. Only the middle blacks were moderately comfortable; they stood in little groups, absorbed in tilting their flat snouts to various experimental angles, as if their life’s work was composing tiny arabesques in air. Mr Eliot, though in robustly rural mood, was plainly harassed; he introduced Appleby and there was another pause in which it seemed almost appropriate that he should introduce the pigs. Or apologize for them. But Mr Eliot, Appleby noted with interest, made no apologies; he was almost firm. ‘We have a large and gay party this weekend,’ he said, ‘and amusing things keep happening. You are sure you will not lunch with us?… You must at least come in and take a glass of sherry.’

  They began to thread their way though the pigs. But in the act Mrs Birdwire found what she wanted to say. ‘And do the loathsome friends your wretched poppycock collects about you’, she demanded, ‘think it amusing to pester perfect strangers in the small hours? What is it, anyway? Another publicity stunt like that red paint?’ Mrs Birdwire spoke not in anger but according to her own private canon of permissible banter – a method, she plainly considered, which licensed all atrocity.

  Mr Shoon intervened with urbanity and force. ‘A large party? You must not let us inconvenience you. At moment we are a large party at the Abbey too. The summer school’ – he glanced about him at the chilly landscape – ‘the winter school, I should say, of the Friends. The Friends of the Venerable Bede. They have been so kind as to honour their president by meeting under his roof. Dr Bussenschutt is going to address us – and tomorrow you shall all pay us a visit.’ Mr Shoon, unfolding these mysteries and making this statement, surveyed the gathering with such bland authority that Mrs Birdwire was silenced and even the middle blacks might be imagined to pay heed.

  ‘The Collection’, said Mr Shoon, ‘I shall introduce with confidence to you all; it is largely’ – he bowed gracefully to Mr Eliot – ‘in the keeping of our host’s charming and able daughter. Of Miss Eliot and’ – he bowed to Appleby, showing in the process that he lost little – ‘of Mr Appleby’s equally talented sister.’ He paused, confident of momentary silence: he was accustomed to overpower. ‘The Cabinet of Curiosities’, he said, ‘may, I fear, be beneath the severity of scholarship’ – his bow went this time to Bussenschutt – ‘but it may afford the ladies amusement for an idle quarter of an hour. And if all else fails’ – he turned to Mr Eliot with a playfulness which implied that his host, despite his rural humour and curious literary pursuits, was a reputed scholar too ‘– if all else fails I can trust my Tamworths to win the heart of the owner’ – his ivory stick swept over the grunting middle blacks – ‘of these dear, dear fellows who have so charmingly turned out to welcome us.’

  As an exit line it could hardly have been bettered; the procession, with the exception of Appleby, swept on to the house. Appleby stayed outside, contemplated the middle blacks, took out a handkerchief and mopped his brow. As he did so he became aware of Mr Eliot, who had made a momentary dive back to him.

  ‘Those pigs,’ he said; ‘whoever did it hasn’t loosed the whole herd.’

  Appleby surveyed the wandering creatures. ‘At a guess’, he said, ‘I should say there are twelve.’

  ‘Nothing’, said Mr Eliot, ‘is more likely.’ He gave Appleby a glance of lucid and placid intelligence and was gone.

  Gerald Winter, with memories of former comparative security, had removed himself to the billiard-room. It was tenanted only by Belinda and Timmy – but proved to be something of a storm-centre nevertheless. The brother and sister were not precisely quarrelling; they were however at cross-purposes, and palpably engaged in getting on one another’s nerves. It occurred to Winter that for the moment they had obscurely exchanged roles. Belinda was inclined to be airy and ironical; it was to be guessed that she was enormously relieved by the happy if obscure turn achieved that morning in her father’s mental processes. Timmy, on the other hand, had turned petulant and subterraneously dangerous; he was on the verge, indeed, of being furiously angry.

  ‘I don’t see’, Belinda was saying, ‘that it really matters very much. Daddy’s got the size of it, and that’s the main thing.’ She gave Winter a glance that tacitly admitted him to the conversation. ‘As long as poor Mr Toplady isn’t worried again it will all pass off bearably enough.’

  Timmy, sprawled by a window attempting to read, snapped his book shut: it was a volume, Winter noted with mild astonishment, prescribed for study in Litteris Humanioribus in the University of Oxford. ‘For goodness sake’, he cried, ‘give over about that awful Hugo once and for all.’

  Belinda opened wondering eyes and turned to Winter. ‘You don’t happen to know if Timmy has been taking to drink?’

  ‘Neither to wine’, said Winter, ‘not to song.’ He smiled blandly at his scowling and infuriated pupil. So many Timmys – in his favourite phrase – had passed beneath his bridges with the same fated eddies and darts that his interest in the spiritual progress of any one specimen was severely moderate. Patricia came and Hugo went: it was the order of things in an adolescent world. ‘The plan’ – Winter turned to Belinda and amused himself by deliberate broadness – ‘was yours, after all.’ He shook his head. ‘Always a plan or two going at Rust.’

  Timmy scrambled to his feet. ‘I could wring’, he said, ‘that blasted little André’s neck. Plans, indeed! If he’s capable of putting what he did across the Cavey he’s capable of putting anything across anybody.’ He appealed to Winter. ‘Do you know what he and Archie were up to this morning? They invented what is certainly a pack of lies about this beastly Murder at Midnight, and persuaded the rabbity woman that when the book comes alive she will certainly be the victim. She got such a shock’ – Timmy rose for a moment to an almost inspired violence of phrase – ‘that she’s probably upstairs now, spawning her flaccid fictions before her time.’

  Winter looked at his pupil seriously. ‘Timmy,’ he said, ‘don’t tell me that you don’t find that funny?’ He turned to Belinda and shook a solemnly significant head.

  ‘And do you know what plan André’s hatching now? He’s preparing some show for tonight. I believe he’s really been concocting it for days, and that it will be elaborate as well as disgusting.�
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  Belinda contrived to look bored. ‘No doubt’, she said, ‘it’s lowering. But I don’t see we need bother so much. As I say, the one important point is whether the joker turns violent before he’s caught. And I think John will look after that.’

  ‘And do you know’, asked Timmy, who was pale and apparently incapable of proceeding except by means of rhetorical questions, ‘just what he is getting up? Do you know what he told me?’

  Winter sat down resignedly. ‘I plead’, he said, ‘for quiet and sustained narrative. There is to be some sort of theatrical performance?’

  ‘There certainly is. And its theme – ’

  The billiard-room door opened, as it always did. There entered – of all impossible couples, thought Winter – Hugo Toplady and Patricia. Belinda looked for a moment as if sisterly regard would dispose her to throw some raft or spar to her brother. Winter, who felt that luncheon was still far off and entertainment necessary, cut quickly in. ‘Timmy’, he said, ‘is just about to tell us André’s plans for this evening. There is to be a theatrical performance, and its theme–’ He made a gesture as if tossing back to Timmy an invisible ball.

  Timmy achieved an appearance of desperate calm. ‘André took it upon himself to tell me that under the circumstances a burlesque of the crime-and-detection stuff would be in bad taste… In bad taste!’ Timmy paused, looked warily at Patricia, sulkily at his sister. ‘Lord, lord, lord.’

  ‘Well,’ said Belinda reasonably, ‘its rather a stuffy way of putting it, but I suppose he’s not exactly wrong. Whatever’s biting you?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Patricia, ‘whatever is?’ Her instinct in such situations, Winter reflected, was as yet uncertain.

  Timmy shied, looked despairingly at door and windows. ‘Oh, nothing. Just that he is putting on some foolery all the same.’ He fidgeted with a stray piece of billiard chalk, glanced up at remorselessly expectant faces. ‘André is arranging a sort of fantasia on the romantic element in the books.’